


in the cold, cold night

by IrisParry



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV), Supernatural
Genre: AU, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-05
Updated: 2014-01-05
Packaged: 2018-01-07 14:00:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1120682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IrisParry/pseuds/IrisParry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jon doesn't take his eyes off the crossroad but he doesn't see her approach - one moment there's nothing, but the next the air is somehow denser, and then she's always been standing there, and Jon has kept her waiting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	in the cold, cold night

**Author's Note:**

> So I was whining on tumblr about how you could REALLY tell from my latest [Dear Darkness](http://archiveofourown.org/works/379742?view_full_work=true) draft I'd read nothing but Supernatural fic for months, and then [xylodemon](http://xylodemon.tumblr.com) went and said _"I’m picturing codependent feudal shenanigans. Jon sells his soul to the Others to bring Robb back after the Red Wedding. I would read it, lbr"_ and I was like, O RLY?? and this happened and I regret nothing. 
> 
> No actual SPN characters in this, but there is a crossroads demon of sorts. Set toward the end of A Storm Of Swords so show!spoilers. Title from the White Stripes song. 
> 
> Warning for an instance of intentional self-injury, as part of a ritual.

It’s not much of a crossroads, but it will serve. The ranger’s roads are half-choked with brush, half-hidden in drifts of snow, but Jon finds his way, guided as much by Ghost’s nose as his own eyes in the fading light. Ghost sticks uncharacteristically close to his side, and Jon can feel the apprehension rolling off him in waves.

Ghost isn’t afraid, not exactly, but he’s unsettled, and it ought to make Jon turn back. A great many things ought to make Jon turn back.

The god of night and terror, the red woman had called him. The only true enemy, the only true war. Listening to her, to the king, Jon had felt the bone-deep weariness settle over him like a cloak. Would any battle truly be the last? Would any sacrifice truly be enough? Thrones and kings and honour and the lack of it had lost Jon a father and three brothers, had lost him Ygritte; and almost certainly his sisters, and more black brothers than he could count. How much more would he take, this god of fire who would have him burn the heart out of Winterfell? Jon has not the right, not to take Winterfell from Robb nor to set himself against the gods themselves. For days exhaustion has been burning through him like a fever, protesting his every step.

What the king and his priestess want of him is simply not there to give, not anymore. Not alone. Jon had always thought himself alone, brooding over his bastardy like the sullen child he was, not all that long ago. The foolishness hits him like a blow to the stomach every time he remembers Robb is gone.

Jon doesn’t think he is watched already, Ghost would know, but he doesn’t want to waste time. Where the paths intersect, he makes the preparations.

Bones were to be had in abundance on the field of battle, and Jon had taken splinters from the armour of a giant, unmistakable even shattered and charred, to assure himself he was not plundering a corpse whose bread he had once shared round a campfire. It ought to have sickened him, he reflects, picking over the dead like the crow they’d called him in life, but today Jon’s mind is as numb as the tips of his fingers, aching dully like the wound in his leg. He packs snow over the offering with the toe of his boot, and pulls off a glove.

Knife drawn, edge biting into the flesh of his palm like the cold air, he hesitates only a moment. The only sounds are the faint stir of the wind in the trees, the echoing silence of snow-bound earth. Ghost sits impassive on the path ahead of him, red eyes giving nothing away, and Jon wonders if he is closed off from Ghost in this moment through his own choice or the direwolf’s.

He inhales sharply as he cuts, just deep enough, and Jon fancies he sees steam rise, blood seeping through his fingers and onto the centre of the crossroads. It should only take a little, but he clenches his fist and counts off four, five, six. The wound’s shallow and closing easily, but in an awkward place: he can feel the glove’s fabric tug at it as he moves, steps carefully a few feet back down the path, the way he came.

Jon waits. He crunches in a short patrol back and forth over the frozen ground, not so much through fear of what’s to come as fear of standing still. If Jon stops now, he might just lie down in the snow and decide to stop for good. He needs to keep moving, keep riding whatever it is that’s driven him out here, beyond the Wall as night falls to treat with monsters. Grief. Duty. Love. Madness.

Jon doesn’t take his eyes off the crossroad but he doesn’t see her approach - one moment there’s nothing, but the next the air is somehow denser, and then she’s always been standing there, and Jon has kept her waiting.

The woman is the night sky fallen to earth, cold and immense and humbling, skin luminous like the moon, eyes bright as twin stars. She wears a robe that looks at once light as silk and heavily armoured, made of shimmering overlapping scales, and her hair pours over it like milk, down to her waist.

Jon blinks, shakes his head, not at the sight but at the roiling scent suddenly overwhelming him, warm, deep earth and cold, vicious metal, old blood, but something else underneath it all. He can’t place it, but it makes a screaming, primal part of him want to turn and run, run for the Wall and the nightfires. Ghost tosses his head, scratches at his muzzle with a massive paw, and the woman’s laugh is like shattering glass.

"A wolf, and a lord commander, come to try their luck," she says, in a lazy, amused voice that prickles at the back of Jon’s neck. "All these years, and little changes." She stalks toward Jon, her bare feet soundless and light on the snow, leaving no footprint behind her. Jon is rooted to the spot, gaze locked on her piercing blue eyes, and they dim cruelly as she approaches, looking more human, more familiar, as if she mocks him with what he comes to ask.

He swallows heavily when she draws nearer, and her fingers are closing on the bone-white handle at her waist when she stops short, and her eyes flare angrily with that unnatural light. She’s beautiful, but it’s all … _wrong_ , something about the proportions and the colours, as if she was sculpted by something not quite familiar enough with the human form, with light and shade or with cause and effect. The blazing blue of her eyes spotlights it grotesquely.

She’s toeing the line in the snow, barely visible to the naked eye but she and Jon both know it’s there. He cut it with Longclaw in a broad circle, stepping carefully as he retreated from the buried bones and fresh blood, and the woman curls her lip and cringes as if she can smell the Valyrian steel.

Jon breathes, doesn’t take his eyes off her, says, “You mistake me, my lady. I am no lord, much less Lord Commander.”

She tips her head, reminding Jon oddly of Ghost, and the smallest furrow appears in her smooth white brow as she studies him. “And I am much less your lady,” she replies, eventually. The smile slashes across her face, quick and dark. “And it is well, for I should risk a tragic fate if I were, Lord Snow. Tell me, did you make such careful study of all the arrows you fired, in fear and desperation?”

Jon’s hand moves to his sword instinctively, but he steels himself and does not draw; and he does not miss the narrowing of her eyes with something that might have been fear. The Valyrian steel can hurt her, he was fairly sure before. Not as sure as he should have been, to risk this, but her response gives him a little more confidence.

She straightens, and takes a small step backward as she shakes her hair behind her shoulders. “It will take more than that sword to steal me, Jon Snow.”

"That’s not why I’m here."

The woman folds her pale arms across her chest. “No?”

Jon knows he has to say it, has to ask. She already knows, this brittle, dangerous creature, he does not doubt it, but something makes him want to draw her out, have her dangle it first, instead of having to offer it up to her like his throat. Whether it’s pride, fear or the nasty, low-down ache that tells him how craven it is, he doesn’t care to know.

"I know you can do it," he begins, the steadiness of his voice belying the erratic thump of his heart. "And not like the wights. Not a - a walking corpse, not your puppet."

She laughs, and she’s pacing slowly just behind the edge of the circle, her robe shifting across her body and twining at her ankles. She looks back at Jon over her shoulder. “And good King Brandon wasn’t my puppet, Lord Snow?” _King Brandon_ , Jon thinks. _So Old Nan was right._ His heart aches when he thinks that he’ll never be able to tell her, or to tell Bran - and his stomach roils when he remembers that maybe he could, but he won’t. He’s made another choice.

"Did he melt my heart of ice with his soft words, do you think? Was he my one true love, then?" Jon follows her as she stalks past him, his steps mirroring hers on the other side of the line, and when she stops suddenly, twists, she’s so close he can feel the cold pour off her skin like the heat from a brazier. "Do I dream of him still?" she hisses, and her eyes sparkle with malice, "Of secret meetings in sacred woods, perhaps? Of midnight promises, of hands and teeth? Of snowflakes melting in his hair? Come now, Lord Snow, spit it - "

"Bring him back," Jon whispers, fighting the bile rising in his throat. "Bring him back, please, just give me some time before - before the payment is due."

The woman’s smile is dark and terrible, like a crack breaking across the Wall.


End file.
